


Hero's and dragons -2

by Tak



Series: Hero's and Dragons [2]
Category: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:16:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tak/pseuds/Tak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second night, sudden fight, silent alchemy to make it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hero's and dragons -2

Shards of sun stretched out across the valley. Dew twinkling in the morning light.  
"Ready?"  
Atty nodded and Farkas pulled back and threw the stick into the air with all the force he could muster.  
Firing not once but five times, Atty kept the wood in the air, bouncing, each arrow catching it with force, pushing it up and along. The only sound the crack slowly getting quieter as they moved further away.  
Farkas laughed impressed. "And Leith is just As good?"  
Atty screwed up her face and waved her hand back and forth.  
"Almost as good."  
Atty smiled, if Farkas realised that it was her ego not letting her admit her friend was on an even peg he wasn't letting on.  
She pointed at him the the bow.  
"Me. You want me to have a turn? Ha no. I know when I'm out mastered." He picked up his axe and held it before him. "This is my talent. If you call it that. Blessed with the strength of Ysgramore. My brother got his smarts. Still slamming this in to my enemies does the trick."  
Attys face broke into a large smile. Her body shook though she made no sound.  
"A laugh at my expense?" He teased.  
She shook her head, tapping her chin twice. Then raising two hands in the air with her thumbs sticking out she wiggled them. Pointing to her chest then taping over her heart.  
Farkas watched perplexed.  
"You like it?"  
She nodded, he was more or less right.  
His way of doing things was simple, Effective she had spent so long in the company of convoluted killers. 

Sunning her self, stretched on her back in the grass, Leith felt a shade pass over her. Vilkas made darker by the back lighting loomed above her.  
"When do we leave?" He asked hinting that he would like to do it sooner than later.  
"We leave, when Atty says we should." Leith told him sliding up so that her face could get more sun.  
"You put a lot of faith in a woman who can't tell you what she's thinking."  
Leith chuckled making herself more comfortable. "Oh you always know what Atty is thinking. She's not a liar like me." She shot him another cheeky grin.  
One of the screaming Arrow whistled passed his head. Narrowly missing his ear and lodging itself in the ground near enough to Leith's head she should have flinched.  
"She also has exceptional hearing."  
He felt the eyes in the back of his head. He didn't need to turn and see her unimpressed face. "I feel she hates me."  
"Don't take offence, she hates every one." Leith answered nonchalantly  
Vilkas sighed heavily and looked back to his brother and the elf. She had retrieved the arrow she had shot at him and picked a strange wild flower on her way back. She handed some to Farkas and proceeded to show him how to suck the nectar out. "Are you sure?" He asked as he noted the shared smiles between the two.  
Leith laughed "Well I suppose he never threatened her, or looked at her like she was going to stab him in the back.  
"Mistrust is healthy." Vilkas told her. "When in company of Rogues"  
"She's an archer."  
"She's a hunter." He retorted quickly.  
"Alright so she'll skin you and salt the meat, but she will come from the front." Leith closed her eyes again getting snippy at the mans insolence.  
"Why are you so quick to defend her honour? When you seem to have no care for it yourself?"  
"It matters to her." She told him flatly.  
"But you tease her, in fact only yesterday you called her backwards."  
She sat up and looked at him aggravated that she wasn't going to be left alone to sun her self in peace. "Do you let people tease your brother because he's slow. Despite reminding him to bolster your own ego?"  
"Of course not." Vilkas bit back.  
"Family is family, and only family torments family."  
He scoffed. "Only she's not even the same race as you."  
"So?" Leith asked not seeing the problem.  
"So she can't be family."  
"By the gods you're stupid." She threw her hands up in the air.  
He stammered. "Well you're short."  
Leith looked at the dark haired man for a moment before bursting into laughter. Flopping back onto her back.  
"You need to relax." She told him "If any one is shanking any one it's me, and I am happier getting my daily dose of sun right now."  
He sat down next to her reluctantly taking her advice. They were quiet together for a time, before Leith queried "It's just the two of you?"  
"As long as we have known. The companions took us on when we were young, but it was always us."  
He glanced over to his brother, enamoured by the dark elf. She appeared to be showing him things, explaining through hand signs, and demonstrations.  
"You can't protect him from every thing." Leith said "Atty won't hurt him lest he deserves it."  
The elf was taking time with his brother, something few did. Yet he didn't see her patronise him, something he himself was guilty of.  
"I worry for him. He is simple."  
Leith raised an eyebrow. "Not as simple as you might think. I thought for the longest time Atty was dense. We often think worse of those who don't speak up. But she let me know she's clever."  
"Really how?"  
"She smacked me upside the head when I was disrespectful."  
Vilkas laughed they were as close to sisters as he and Farkas were brothers. 

Pausing in the midday sun Atty froze like a hound that had just caught the sent of game. Her posture changed, she pulled an arrow and readied it.  
Leith sat up, her friend was scared, this was not a wild beast nor any creature, her head was darting following the noises. There were many, surrounding them. Stalking them quietly in the morning sun.  
The first lunged, sword and shield in hand, but Atty's arrow was quicker.  
A second popped up behind Leith and Vilkas, her next shot catching him with a wet thwack.  
A pair jumped up, Leith thankful for her paranoia rolled the attacking man off her, using her bow that she kept at her side.  
The surrounding enemies attacked. The four travellers were heavily out numbered. The archers doing their best to keep the greater numbers from swarming them, the two heavily armoured picking of those stupid enough to venture close.  
Three rushed Atty, she caught one with an arrow to the throat sending him to the dirt, the last two tackling her lifting her off her feet and slamming her onto her back.  
Kicking punching and biting, beneath the two large body's the dunmer didn't see Farkas transformation. She heard a crack of bones she thought the sickening sound was coming from her own compacted chest.  
Oxygen filled her lungs as one of the body's attempting to hold her down was pulled away. Followed by a shriek. The second turned his attention on the far more deadly beast. Atty scrabbled for her bow for some arrows while man and beast fought. Finding only the latter, she held the arrow head in her hand like a dagger and stabbed it into the mans shoulder with all her might. He bellowed in pain, and the beast tore out his throat his bellows turning to gargles.  
Leith and Vilkas hacked and stabbed their way through the last few that remained brave enough to fight. Leith made sure to chase off those that fled with a few well placed arrows.  
The snarling beast that was Farkas remained . Feasting on corpses in his blood lust.  
"Cursed silver hand!" Vilkas exclaimed. "Hunting us like animals at every turn."  
"Well." Leith began stretching the word. "They aren't with out some cause." She pointed to his brother.  
Atty stared wide eyed at the beast that saved her life, his muzzle and claws coated in blood. It wasn't the death he had caused that made her stare but the wound In his side.  
"Don't." Vilkas said as she approached him. "Though beasts we aren't." He hissed in Leith's direction. "When wounded we can sometimes mistake friend for foe."  
Atty placed a firm and steady hand on the eldest brothers shoulder and pushed him aside as she approached Farkas. He growled low in his throat, bearing his teeth while shuffling backwards.  
"He won't be able to transform until he calms." Atty heard Vilkas utter.  
Laying her bow on the ground, she extended her hand. Slowly Palm raised fingers reaching softly forward. She remembered father would coo to the wounded mammoths who would do the same thing, soft noises to sooth the creatures. She had no words to console him, no sounds to calm him. All she had was her hands, her touch. Finally after inching forward her fingers connected with his snout, until they lay flat against him. His eyes looked up and through the fur she could still see what was unmistakably Farkas. He leaned into her hand, until eventually his large furry head rested on her shoulder.  
A sigh slipped from his mouth and the cracking and crunch of bones returning to their original shape echoed through their camp.  
"Good gracious he's naked." Leith exclaimed looking up At the sky. Averting her eyes from the obvious man form that was collapsing into her friend.  
Atty clicked her fingers twice.  
"I am not touching him now, I preferred him as a wolf, at least there was reason for the hair." She protested.  
The Dunmer clicked again more forcefully this time. But it was Vilkas that answered her call. Helping her prop up the slowly fading Farkas. The beast was keeping him upright, something primal keeping him from feeling the effects of the knife to the gut.  
Together they lay him down back closer to the camp. Covering him in a blanket, Atty disappearing into the brush.  
"So your both wolves?" Leith asked.  
Vilkas nodded, "flee now if you must, I didn't expect you to stay. The dark elf hasn't."  
She pulled out her water flask From her belongings and knelt next to the wounded Farkas covered enough for her to look upon his form. She spilled a little on a cloth and dabbed his forehead. Patting away the beads of sweat forming three  
"She'll be getting herbs or something for a poultice, something to draw the infection out. She's an alchemist you know."  
Vikas licked his lips and began slowly. "Atty, is your hunter, your healer, she starts your fires sets your camp, tells you went you can and can't travel..." He paused and looked at the small elf. "What is it that you do."  
"I talk." She said as if the notion was clear as day. "It's awfully hard, to trade your wares with no voice. Woefully hard to convince people of your innocence when you are rendered silent. Atty has skills with the wilds it's true, but that is where it ends, she had no concept of money, no idea of our language."  
"And now that she does?"  
She sighed looking into the direction of the rustling of her friends return.  
Attys signs were sharp, her body language conveying urgency.  
"I still have my uses." Leith snapped at Vilkas's dumbfounded face.  
She threw a kettle on the boil and pulled out some bowls for Atty, while the Alchemist herself grabbed mortar and Pestle and began mixing a paste out of what ever she pulled from the foliage. The two women working in unison with out so much of a word. 

The brews ready she waved Leith away, back to a lazy position far enough to let Atty work, and any action she was inspired into quashed.  
"An assistant then?" He was baiting the lazy bosmer.  
Atty had made a series of rude hand gestures to get him to leave his brothers side, and he needed to do do something to take his mind of worry. A wound in the wild could turn quickly, and neither himself or elven companions were a healer, so they had to rely on silent alchemy.  
"An assistant is all you peg me for?" She scoffed pulled to her feet by indignation. "I am the hero of this merry tale."  
"You? The little thief?"  
She turned from camp looking towards the tree line and the small river flowing from the cluster and down the hill.  
"You are not the only one with a secret." she took a deep breath and opened her mouth "Fus Ro Dah".  
Trees cracked grass swayed and more the one flock of birds took to the air.  
"Dragonborn." Vilkas whispered.  
They heard a clap getting her attention with the rude signs from earlier repeated.  
"Sorry." Leith begrudgingly apologised before return ing to the stunned man.  
"Let me tell you the irony of the Dragonborn and her mute friend is not lost on me."

Evening crept up over the plains like a lazy cat. Heavy with a moonless night.  
"Will we leave?" Leigh signed to her companion, shadowed heavily, fingers light dancing of her features.  
Atty was reluctant, this would be their second night with the young men, they had caught no big game, travelled no distance. Leith was getting fidgety, she could see it. Casting a glance at Farkas she thought maybe they could cope alone.  
"Tomorrow then?" Leith shrugged with her hand movements, watching her friends face and the concern she had for this stranger.  
The dark elf nodded offering her friend a rare and thankful smile.  
The night proved to be dark, the crescent moon from the night before had waned and no light shone from the sky. Atty sat cross legged next to Farkas. The others retired for the evening leaving her on watch. She let the fire burn low and the sweet darkness envelop her.  
Her patient groaned in his sleep. Twitching he woke up and sat up swiftly, disorientated in the dark. She reached for his hand offering comfort, seeing only the edge of shapes in the darkness. He swiftly reversed her grip, snatching her hand in his, his thick fingers holding her tightly as he pulled her towards him.  
Inhaling sharply she felt a moment of panic rise, startled warriors could be a dangerous thing, he was unarmed but that didn't mean he couldn't hurt her.  
She fell against his chest and she felt his arms go about her body tightly. He hugged her, a physical response she was hardly use to. "Thank you." He whispered into her hair.  
Patting him gently on his naked back she let him know it was alright. Then a quicker sharper tap let him know it was time to let her go.  
He chuckled awkwardly "I'm sorry. " his gruff whisper cutting through the silence. She squeezed his shoulder, communication was difficult when there was no light to go by. Her fingers drifted to his neck lingering under his chin. She was in fact checking his pulse. It was slowing from the initial fright but becoming normal. She felt him lean into her hand.  
"I had dreams, dreams of Sithis, and death. I thought, I don't know what I thought." He sighed heavily "Your hands are cold it's nice."  
Lingering longer than she should have on his flesh, they were both rendered quiet again. Delivered once more to the silent pitch of the wilderness.  
"Are you afraid of death." Again the whisper was low, as he asked her questions he dreaded to ask his brother, knowing whether she judged him or not she wouldn't speak of it.  
"I am, but only because the wolf blood means I cannot go to Sovngarde. I always thought maybe in death I would find my family."  
Atty moved leaning against his shoulder, the Dunmer didn't have the same beliefs as the Nords and the Giants had another thought on life and death altogether. Yet she knew that feeling.  
"I suppose you're not afraid of anything."  
He felt her shrug, Atty was a mortal like any other, things scared her. Death was not one of those things. Her adoptive father was a giant, who raised her from a babe. And the woman, her adoptive mother, who moulded her into an adult was the bride of Sithis. She could talk to death, talk to the night mother and the mother listened. The tight lipped silence that followed the assassins guild everywhere suited her. She couldn't fear death when Death and Leith had been her only two companions for years.

Hushed whispers floated to Leith's ears. She watched the two dark figures, her keen hunters eyes making out enough in the glow of the embers to worry that her friend would make another excuse to stay with the brothers in the morning.  
Attachment was not the safest thing with their lifestyle. A head rested on a shoulder, an arm sat around a body before it braced itself on the ground. A proximity and care in the actions spoke volumes for the relationship brewing. 

Morning trickled trough the camp waking weary travellers. Farkas had remembered a head on his shoulder, the smell of hair, the warmth of another body when he went to sleep. But there was nothing now. Leith found all their bags packed and rolled but no Atty to be found.  
Hair a mess eyes filled with sleep Vilkas connected the dots. "Atty has chosen for you to leave then?"  
"I appears so." It was had to mask the surprise in her voice after witnessing the moment last night.  
"Dissuade her. Come to Whiterun with us. The champions could use you." He insisted.  
She laughed "To what fight bears? To pick a side in a civil war fought by men, who ran the indigenous from their homes so long ago they turned pail and sightless?" Stretching she continued her nonchalant airs while he fumed at her blunt comments.  
"You'd rather hunt deer and be a criminal?"  
"I may be a criminal but I'm honest about what I've stolen, I don't lie and pretend its mine."  
He opened his mouth and shut it huffing at his loss of words.  
"Shouldn't have expected anything more from an elf."  
A grin slid across her face as the human showed his true colours.  
"And there it is."  
Before the argument was continued Atty burst from the wilderness a collection of things filling her arms. Yanking a square if fabric from her bag she divided up what she had found and her bagged goods.  
"You're not giving them our rations!" Leith protested.  
Un fazed she pointed to the the fresh rabbits. She took the parcel and pressed it into Vilkas hands. Holding a small vial up she pointed at Farkas, made a motion to rub a small amount on the wounded area. Her gestures continued a flurry of information.  
"Food for a few days, and a salve for Farkas wound." Leith translated, "travel in mornings or evenings, to avoid the silver hand, the morning dew should mask a lot of your trail." Atty's gestures became bigger more demanding "DONT camp in the valley, find a spot higher, it's a migration path, you'll get trampled while you sleep."  
Atty tapped Vilkas' head.  
"Use your head," Leith explained  
She pointed to his eyes.  
"Keep your eyes open. And don't linger." With that she smiled at him and gave him a firm nod clapping him on the shoulder once. Before turning to Farkas.  
"I guess that's the only goodbye you're going to get." The bosmer said speaking for herself bluntly.  
"I meant it, there is work, honest work, and beds in Whiterun should you choose." He pressed  
The cheeky smirk returned "Then should I choose, I will see you there."  
Atty parting reluctantly from Farkas joined Leith on her walk down the valley and deeper into the hunting grounds of skyrim.  
"I understand the travel bag." Leith sighed to her friends signing."I don't think they will survive a day with out us either."


End file.
